Rocking and Swinging Babies to Sleep, In Thailand and the Rest of the World

by Alice Callahan on April 11, 2013

I’m working on the “sleep strategies” chapter of my book. This chapter is about the strategies that we use to help our babies sleep and how these practices correlate to the development of baby’s sleep patterns.

I’m fascinated by cultural variation in nighttime parenting strategies. However, according to some accounts, there’s a simplistic dichotomy in the way parents around the world help their babies sleep. In most of the world, mothers sleep with their babies and breastfeed on demand throughout the night. Sleep is not a problem, because babies simply aren’t expected to sleep through the night. We in the West, however, don’t understand normal infant sleep. We bend over backwards with all sorts of tricks and gadgets to help our newborns sleep, often alone. (I’m looking at you, swings, bouncy seats, strollers, drives in the car, exercise balls, washing machines.) Then, a few months later, we tire of the antics, grow intolerant of night wakings, and turn to sleep training as the answer.

There is definitely some truth to this. It’s something that I’m writing about in greater detail in my book. But we also know that nothing is as simple as it seems, and infant sleep is no exception. I think it’s helpful to know that parents everywhere struggle with their babies’ sleep or lack thereof, and that’s true regardless of sleep customs or cultural expectations (Sadeh et al. 2011). No matter where they’re born, babies have to acclimate to a world that grows dark and quiet at night and bright and busy during the day. We might use different strategies to help our babies sleep, but there are many similarities as well.

I ran across one of these similarities in a paper I read yesterday (Anuntaseree et al. 2008). Thai researchers surveyed parents of three-month-olds born across the country in 2000. They asked the parents how their babies fell asleep, where they slept, how they were fed, and how often they woke during the night. The parents of more than 3700 babies responded to the survey.

Most of these babies – 68% – shared a bed with their parents. The rest slept in a separate bed but in the same room. Putting babies to sleep in a separate room was nearly unheard of. Of 3700 babies, only two slept alone (a whopping 0.05%). About half were exclusively breastfed, and another quarter were fed a combination of breast milk and formula. On average, these three-month-old babies woke their parents 2.7 times per night, but there was of course a lot of variation here. Nearly 50% woke just one or two times per night. The researchers wondered which factors were related to waking more often, and they found significant correlations with these: male gender, more than three naps per day, falling asleep while feeding, exclusive breastfeeding, and the use of a swinging or rocking cradle.

The gender and napping associations are a little odd and not supported by other studies. However, the rest of it isn’t surprising. It is well accepted that breastfed infants wake more often during the night. Human breast milk is more rapidly digestible than formula (Cavell 1981), so breastfed babies need to feed more frequently. It’s also a common finding that feeding to sleep increases waking (or more accurately, waking the mother) during the night.

But I was really interested in learning more about the swinging or rocking cradles mentioned in this paper. It turned out that 88% of babies commonly started their night in such a cradle. Here’s how the paper described it:

“Use of a swinging or rocking cradle for infant sleep is traditionally used in many Asian countries including Thailand. The typical “getting the infant to sleep” situation in Thailand is for parents to use a cradle as a sleeping aid, and then when the infant falls [to] sleep, transfer the infant to the bed. There has been no previous study regarding the effect of this custom on night waking; our study is the first to demonstrate this association.”

I was curious about what a Thai swinging cradle might look like, so of course, I Googled it. The only photos I found showed a pretty extraordinary contraption:

Photos by Jop Timmers

I found these photos on this design blog and emailed the author, Jop Timmers, to see if I could repost his photos here. He happily agreed, and he told me a bit more about the photos:

“The picture was taken in Kong Chiam, close to the Mekong River and near the border with Laos. The grandmother was trying to make the crying baby of 9 months old to become quiet and go to sleep. The speed was dazzling, but it worked, the boy fell asleep almost instantly. It was a habit of her to do so.”

Anuntaseree et al. consistently refer to “swinging or rocking cradles,” so I assume that the swinging design is not unusual. I’m picturing the rocking cradles as being more similar to the traditional European design, but that’s just a guess. Anyone have more knowledge of these cradles?

There are a few things to point out about this Thai study. For one thing, rocking or feeding to sleep didn’t doom parents to sleepless nights. Plenty of babies in this study fell asleep this way and only woke once or twice. And second, this Thai study just identified associations. (As I said, it isn’t particularly groundbreaking work, but I think it is interesting from a cross-cultural perspective.) As with any cross-sectional study, we don’t know for sure if it is the infant influencing the parenting practices or vise versa. It is surely a bit of both. But several lines of evidence support the idea that parental practices shape baby’s sleep. One study found that mothers’ ideas about infant sleep during pregnancy predicted how many times their babies would wake during the night at 6 months, and this effect was mediated by the way they soothed their babies (Tikotsky and Sadeh 2009). And when parents are counseled, even prenatally, on early strategies to encourage their babies to learn to go to sleep on their own, their babies end up with fewer night wakings (Pinilla and Birch 1993, Kerr et al. 1996, Wolfson et al. 1992). In other words, how you parent around bedtime and during the night has at least some impact on how your baby sleeps.

The strategy of using motion to help babies fall asleep must be universal. We parents find that if we can mimic the motion of the uterine environment in some way, it is often soothing to our newborns. In the first weeks and months of parenting, we’ll do anything to help calm our babies. And really, who can blame us? But, at some point, we often find ourselves stuck with unsustainable sleep associations. Perhaps Thai parents are no different. The baby in the photos above has learned to fall asleep with motion akin to a carnival ride. This kind of environment is actually quite different from the one he experienced during fetal life, and at some point, he’s going to have to learn to fall asleep while his body is still.

I have a love-hate relationship with motion as a sleep aid. We bounced Cee to sleep on an exercise ball for most the first three months of her life, and this may have saved my sanity and feelings of self-efficacy as a new parent. But then I was horrified when I realized that she couldn’t wind down without a fairly vigorous 30 minutes or more of bopping up and down. For her, learning to fall asleep without motion made all the difference in the quantity and quality of her sleep. I wish that I had supported Cee in learning to fall asleep in stillness or even a more gentle, sustainable motion, a bit sooner. Of course, that’s always easier to say in hindsight. At the time, we were surviving one day at a time.

I don’t think we should be afraid to rock our babies to sleep for as long as we want. We should just know that it might be causing baby to wake more later in the night. If that doesn’t appeal to you, consider helping your baby to learn some other ways to fall asleep. If a baby falls asleep in conditions that are similar to those he’ll feel when he wakes briefly during the night, he’s more likely to be able to yawn and go back to sleep. The key is to find opportunities to make that a gentle transition earlier in life, lest you end up with a nine-month-old who requires “dazzling speed” to get some rest.

Did you use motion to help your baby sleep? How did you transition away from that strategy?

While we’re talking baby cradles from around the world, here’s a few more cool cradles that turned up in my Internet meandering. And if you can’t tell, I’m really having a lot of fun with this research!

A gorgeous Japanese cradle, dated 1701-1850, inlaid with tortoise and abalone shells. I wonder if that hole in the bottom third has something to do with diapering or lack thereof?

Photo from Science Museum, London

An Italian cradle, dated 1600-1750, made of fabric covered in plaster.

Photo from Science Museum, London

And finally, here’s a modern cradle with a cool design. Of course, you might prefer to just hold your baby if you’re going to rock him to sleep, but this cradle does eliminate the delicate transfer maneuver (although this doesn’t look like a safe place for a baby to sleep unsupervised for the night).

We are heading into month two of night weaning our 2yo and if he can’t nurse to sleep, he often wants to “dance” (lay in my arms while I walk around), or rock as I sit up in bed. I’m accepting it as a valid transitory device, but I am not looking forward to then weaning him off rocking once the night nursing is solidly gone!

I wasn’t aware of the correlation between breast milk and waking, and I will choose to accept that boys wake more often, so I feel a little better about how horrid the first couple months were with my son! 🙂

There may be something to the gender association. I know that there are studies showing that bedsharing is more common with male babies (might be a reaction to greater difficulty sleeping), and parents are more likely to report that their male babies have sleep problems (but there could be some bias in parents’ expectations in that measure). And yes, breastfed babies often wake more, though at least one study showed that breastfeeding moms get more sleep (maybe because breastfeeding during the night is easier and more restful than getting up to make a bottle). Good luck with night weaning! And yeah, it’s worth thinking about what habits he’s learning as you break you the night nursing one:)

Our son slept in a bassinet next to us for about 2 weeks and I would bring him into bed for his bi-nightly feed then put him back. I actually found doing this helped soothe him into the world.

We put him into his own cot soon after 2 weeks and I’d get up and feed him in his room. His dad would bring him in when he got up for work in the morning. This worked well. He slept on dad’s side of the bed with pillows around him. 7 years later my son still does this 🙂

I used a sling during the day so he’d fall asleep on me. I hung the washing, did the vacuuming etc – all with him in the sling! As a result of this (I think) he’s a really cuddly child and loves being close to me, he leans on me when we’re on the couch.

I didn’t rock him to sleep, he just slept on me. Same with his dad.

Co-sleeping is not recommended in New Zealand due to the rate of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). It’s quite prevalent over there and in Australia. Due to that, I kept co-sleeping (in a bed) to a minimum but I found other ways to bond with him.

Slings are great for daytime naps, and that means that you were using motion! It’s surely the type of motion most like the intrauterine movements. Cee loved napping in a wrap or sling as well. I generally didn’t mind, but she would wake up if I sat down, and she did reach an age and size where it was wearing out my back and shoulders and I just wanted my body to be free during naps! But there is something so sweet about a baby nuzzled up against your chest in perfect peace, isn’t there?

It sounds like your son had some flexibility in the way he slept, which I think is great. It’s nice to have a baby that can sleep in stillness in his crib and also nap on the go against your body.

He’s a great sleeper now. He sleeps for about 11-12 hours each night but he is a little buggar to get into bed – doesn’t want to miss out on anything.

Another way I got him to nod off was reading to him. I started reading to him from about 3-months. Day in day out for 7 years. Now he reads to himself in bed & turns his own light out when he’s ready to turn in 🙂 Can’t ask for more than that!!

HI Alice, I shared this with my FB parenting group (I should invite you to join it… it’s like a huge focus group). Would you ever be interested in coming up to Portland to do a workshop on ‘science-based parenting’? For example, on how to find credible information online? I see so many people saying they are “doing research” and then linking to websites like Mercola.

Hmmm, I might be interested in a workshop… it could be like a focus group for me, too! I think it’s a great idea, and you’re right that the place to start is probably with science and media literacy. I’m planning to come up to PDX the first weekend in May. Maybe we could meet for coffee and talk about it?

That would be great! I sent you a friend request on FB, which will allow me to invite you to Parenting in Portland. We can work out the details for May also 🙂
I used to do media literacy trainings on tobacco advertising, but health literacy in the age of social media is a whole new ball game.

In my native country, Indonesia (neighbour to Thailand) cradle and swing are methods that widely used to help infant to sleep. I remember my cousin’s youngest who would nap happily in his swing and at night time would sleep in bed with his parents. He was breastfed throughout the night and bottlefed during the day. There was not any objection from the parents. They just accepted the situation as “what it should be” and work their way around it.

With my asian background, I must admit it was a shock to me to learn that there is such thing as sleep training in the west. I could not see the point of set up a special room for a baby with all the decorations and gadget. Our little man co-slept with us for a year and he was breastfed all night. I didn’t mind at all and in fact I love the close moments between us two. He would nap in his sling for the first 8 months of his life. However I still feel guilty with the practise because the pressure I feel from western society; carrying him in sling all time will hurt your back, you should just leave him cry to sleep, he is now too old for breastfeeding, etc.

This is why I think it is so important to understand cultural variation in parenting practices. When you realize how different they are around the world (and in some ways, how they are the same), it seems silly to criticize another parent’s choices. I’m sorry that you’ve felt some judgement for your choices. You have to do what works for you and your baby, and your cultural traditions are part of that.

I also found that through our first two colicky months, rocking, puting him in a baby sling and bouncing on the ball were the only ways to settle my little one. I must admit though sleep training does seem still a bit too harsh and I can’t imagine doing something like that. Our little guy is 5 months now and sleeps pretty good and we rarely use any rocking methods, but every once in a while as he has already started teething. So we do that to sooth him maybe once or twice a week now just before he goes to bed. I did want to mention though that I do feel a pressure here to ‘sleep train’ from family and close friends. My boyfriend and I were in between moving house – moving to the UK from France for a job and inbetween staying with my in-laws which was the months of birth until he was 2 and a half months old. We got a lot of judgment and second guessing our decisions to rock our baby, or let him sleep in our room. It was really hard to handle. I know it was all with good intentions but hearing that we were giving him bad habits when he was only three weeks old and cried for hours on end was extremely stressful for us as new parents. We were trying everything possible. I work in health research so I was constantly reading up on what could help but it is quite hard explaing to others when what I like to call ‘ grandmothers remedies’ are valued much more than research. I think there is a place for both but when it comes to babies I think this is really important. I gave the example to my in laws, that it was not too long ago that we were practicing surgery on infants without anethestics (circa 1950’s right?) because we did not believe they felt and even if they did people thought they would not remember. In the end I think we realized that, we really just had to trust our instincts and do what we felt our baby needed. So sometimes now we rock and sometimes we dont. I think as we have started using it less, he has gotten less used to the rocking. For example, before if we popped him in the stroller or the baby carrier to go for a walk he would be immediatly asleep but now he often stays awake and loves to be watching everything around him. It is marvellous to see him enjoying the world around him.

That does sound stressful! I think that with a newborn, your starting place HAS to be being responsive and doing what you can to help your baby regulate amongst all the new stimulation and sensations of life on the outside world. I also think it is important to let your baby try regulating his own emotions at some point, but that’s something that I think can happen gradually if you’re paying attention to what he’s ready for. We sleep trained, and it helped a lot, but I don’t like to pressure other parents to do it at all. It’s very personal, and we and our babies are all different in the ways we cope with sleep deprivation, stress, changes, etc.

With a baby who is used to rocking to sleep at 2 months old, what direction or evidence-based practices should we use in helping her to make the transition to not rocking? Right now, it seems my only options are to pick up my crying baby and rock her back to sleep or let her cry for short periods until she eventually goes to sleep (can take a long time). I don’t feel ready to engage in full on sleep training, but am unsure of how to help her get from where she is to the point that she is not waking so often. None of the “still” soothing techniques actually seem to calm my baby.

Those cradles are fantastic! In the early weeks of my son’s life, I used stroller walks to help him nap, but then I would be trapped outside for the duration of the nap. It was especially annoying because we lived in a place where sudden rain squalls would materialize out of nowhere. At about 3-4 months, I decided that needed to end. It worked out pretty well because at that age, my son started becoming interested in the greater world, and stroller walks became more stimulating than lulling, even if I pulled his sleep shade down. That was also the time his naps became more regular. I could put him in his (still) bassinet at around 9am and trust he’d take a nap. There was some fussing at first, but it wasn’t too bad and didn’t last very long. Within 2 or so weeks, he got the idea that a quick lullaby and the bassinet (later, the crib) meant that it was sleep time. Nighttime sleep was a whole other story. I think we’re one of the unusual families that got reliable naps down before decent nights of sleep, though I’m sure the way we parented at night contributed to our tribulations.

For the first few months of Cee’s life, we took a stroller walk every morning. It was good for all of us (including the dog!), and she had a hard time with napping until she was around 5 months old (nighttime sleep was easier for us!). Once she started napping reliably in her crib, it was apparent that she would take a longer nap there than in the stroller, so walking became an awake activity that we did after nap.

I think it’s all about consistency. With the naps, I instituted a clear routine and stuck to it. When my son woke at night, sometimes he’d get some chest rubs from my husband (that soothed him quite often), sometimes we’d wait 5 minutes for him to settle down on his own, sometimes he got nursed. He never knew what was coming! Our scattershot responses led to increasing night wakings, until we sleep trained at 7 months. It all seems so obvious now, but nothing is obvious when the baby is wailing at 3am and you haven’t slept the night through in 6 months!

I don’t have anything helpful about transitioning, but I’ve wondered about the quality of sleep while baby is in a sling. I made a point for our son not to nap in the carrier or sling after reading Dr Weissbluth’s book. If I remember correctly he said sleep during periods of motion isn’t as deep so it isn’t preferred. I wonder if that is true and what other studies say.

Oh, I’m so glad you brought up the inferiority of motion sleep. I remember reading that and taking it to heart too. In all my reading, I have yet to read anything about that! I will have to check to see if Weissbluth cited a source for that. It’s a great question. This idea may have come from the data showing that falling asleep with motion often means more waking later, but that’s a different situation from continuous motion. I’ll see if I can find any research on it.

Those images are beautiful and amazing! Yes, stormtrails, I used Weissbluth’s book too and was wondering too about his cautionary tales about the inferiority of “motion sleep.” And, Alice, I was right there with you on the exercise ball. I spent so many hours during my son’s colicky period on that ball — that I had originally bought as a birthing ball — that I ended up with “abs of steel” within a couple months. And we had the same panic and sinking realization after a few months when our son couldn’t fall asleep without the intense bouncing. And the gentle rocking of a cradle or swing wasn’t close to enough for the most part. We had to bounce HARD on that silly ball. As far as transitions, we just went cold turkey and did sleep training — Weissbluth’s extinction — at 4.5 months or so. Our situation was unsustainable, and my son wouldn’t accept any “compromise” solutions in the middle of the night, such as co-sleeping (which I tried repeatedly), or rocking in a glider.

Jessica, we were in a very similar boat! Bouncing was the only thing that worked. Holding and rocking just seemed to make her more upset, like she just couldn’t understand why we would withhold the bouncing. I’m honestly not sure I would allow an exercise ball in our house next time around, or at the very least, I would use it a lot more sparingly.

So interesting to think about the cross-cultural perspectives. Kind of like not eating sushi while pregnant–seems like that would be considered very silly in Japan. Both my babies have been good sleepers. It’s funny though, with our second I was more in tune with baby phases, and we kept him in bed longer (6 months) before he went to a crib in the other room, which we initiated when we realized he was just comfort nursing at night. Even though it sounds like most of the world (and many of my friends) co-sleep, after the newborn phase with both babies I felt like I just had to get my sleep back. Even when the baby was nursing at night and both of us were still “asleep,” I was having a hard time maintaining sleep cycles. And when I don’t get a good night’s sleep, the next day is *not* good. Also, being able to be intimate with my spouse was a key driver for the baby not sleeping in our bed anymore.

Evelyn, although we often hear that the rest of the world bedshares, I’d be willing to bed there is a lot of variation there, too, particularly later in infancy. For example, in many cultures baby might be sleeping close but still have a separate mat or something that puts a little distance between him and the boobs. I’m reading the science on bedsharing and sleep patterns right now, and bedsharing can definitely make for a less-consolidated night of sleep, and it often doesn’t get better as baby gets older. I think the open bar for breastfeeding can make it tough for everyone to sleep. It’s always good to recognize what your limits are and consider your own needs for sleep and intimacy in the equation! Thanks for reading and commenting!

Kathy Dettwyler (anthropologist) said recently at a conference that babies need multi sensory stimulation to go to sleep. In Africa, they put babies on their back and start pounding the millet if the babies want to sleep. James McKenna says something similar, that babies have trouble with low stimulation. I believe that when babies are put on an unmoving flat surface in a dark, quiet room alone, they can’t handle it because this is not what biologically they meant to experience. My babies needed different sleep associations (if you will) to go to sleep at different stages in their lives. They grew out of them at different times when they no longer had the need (habit). At night they were beside me and breast fed regardless of what “associations” they had when they went to sleep. So, I am not so sure that those associations matter as it didn’t make any difference for my kids. At night, I cannot tell you how many times they woke (possibly much more than what the western mom would like) because most of the time I didn’t fully wake, if even. My babies also never had to cry or wake at night (except perhaps in the early days) because once they stirred, they were offered the breast (often almost in my sleep). I believe that is the key. Because once they wake up and get worked up, you will have to calm them and settle them, and for some babies that may just be hard rocking. I think your daughter would have outgrown the hard rocking as they do change around 3-4 month of age and often between 5-6 month age. Then again around 9 months, they could be difficult to settle. All babies are different of course. The thing is we don’t know the future, and when you are in it (and I had great sleepers, so I’m not as qualified to speak), it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. You get all consumed by what is happening in the present.
As for self-regulation, have you read Allen Schore’s work? He and others in the field say that it is the caregiver (usually the mother) who regulates the baby and the child learns to self-soothe by the internalization of the mother’s comforting actions (soothing). This makes sense to me as my kids learned to sleep through the night (self-soothe) despite the fact that I always soothed them to sleep. But that took some time of course.

I think it is difficult for parents of great sleepers to understand what parents of difficult sleepers go through, as well as what the difficult sleepers themselves experience. If your child were waking every 45 minutes or even more frequently than that then trust me – every thought of the future would fly out of your mind. When it was happening to me and my child I was just trying to get through a day without barfing from sleep deprivation. And not all parents can safely bedshare, unfortunately.

Anita, I think the anthropological perspective is fascinating and important, but I also think it isn’t everything. Much of it is speculative, and I’m sure our view of our ancestors’ parenting practices is over-simplified. There was surely a lot of variation in the way babies slept and were cared for. Also, what was adaptive behavior in a hunter-gatherer troop may not be adaptive in modern times. Life was much more dangerous, and not temperature-controlled, then. I have no doubt that there are physiological advantages to sleeping with our babies, but I think we have to be open to the fact that there may also be disadvantages. The balance will be different depending on the family. Some mothers are happy to nurse through the night and like you, can sleep through most of it. Others can’t and don’t cope well, so bedsharing doesn’t work well. I do think bedsharing is more likely to give you *sustainable* sleep associations, because it is easy to recreate how baby fell asleep without getting out of bed (maybe too easy!). The same can’t be said for bouncing on an exercise ball for 45 minutes in the middle of the night! I think sleep associations are unavoidable for the vast majority of babies. The key is to think early on about the ones you are willing to repeat over and over, and if it is important to you, to give your baby a chance to fall asleep in other ways. I actually think babies are more capable than we often give them credit for. Figuring out what your baby needs to falls asleep (sensory input, quiet, movement, stillness) requires letting her try a few different ways and recognizing that her needs and abilities will change as she grows.

We’re cosleeping (unintentionally) with our 16 month old and I’m wondering when STTN will happen and when to transition her to her own room. I know every culture, family and child is different, but do you have a sense of what “the rest of the world” does regarding sleep once their babies become toddlers? I’m starting to think that I will never STTN again. We tried sleep-training and I gave up after I realized that it would take longer than 2 weeks of crying and I couldn’t handle that.

We co-slept with little one till he was 13 months. It was all lovely when he was younger but towards the end co-sleeping just didn’t work. I had to go to bed with him at 6 pm everyday because he would only go to sleep by nursing (and would only stay asleep if I stayed in bed with him). We tried few times to sleep train, from controlled crying to cry to sleep, but I always gave up because I was sure he would need more than two weeks; and I think I wouldn’t be able to take it. But everyone had enough by the time he was 13 months. He couldn’t sleep well because we disturbed each other. We finally let him cry himself to sleep and it took 4 weeks for him to get the message. There was lots of tears and tantrum the first week but it faded out towards the 4th week. That was the only method that worked with him. Ironically, it was the method we dreaded to use. We tried more gentle way few times but they upset him even more. I think age is a factor too for sleep training. When we started we thought it was the right time for him to learn to sleep pn his own. He has been a great sleeper ever since.

Nothing can teach, they enseñan.La we see no sleep anxiety is what we we’re enseñando.Hay alimentarlos.Ellos love them and shelter them have to sleep when your dream comes.
The fear and worry is what we are showing in the day.
It is very selfish to give our fears for fear that something might happen, if there is a well, it makes sense to fix the well and allow you to walk …

I have noticed how the Thais really swing their babies. Not a gentle swing but a huge arc through 90 degrees and suspended from the ceiling. I am always quite alarmed when I see this. I am not so concerned about the strength of the rope, more about the extreme sensation and how this may affect the baby. Hours and hours of incessant swinging that would make an adult feel utterly sick and miserable and desperate to be left motionless.

‘Everything in moderation’ I thought was a Buddhist maxim, but this seems far from moderate behaviour.

I have not been able to find any scientific study on this subject. Can anyone here please give an opinion on such extreme swinging and whether there would be any harmful side effects.

I come to this discussion late, but have a new born (2 months now) that is using the traditional Thai village cradle that is basically a hammock device just a piece of material tied and knotted at each end and hung between 2 posts. The Thais either swing by hand or use a length of cord attached at one end (remote control?!) so they can talk, eat, watch TV, etc. Such a simple technology makes me wonder why we in the west spend so much on modern contraptions. Sometimes the tried and trusted basics are so much better but we city folk have forgotten them.

I’d love to see a picture of your baby’s swing! I agree with your sentiment about all of our baby devices – so much plastic! – although as mother to a 2-month-old right now, I understand the desperation to find anything to help the baby sleep:)

When I was traveling in SW China, I saw similar cradles with holes in them. And I also saw babies and toddlers wearing pants with holes around genitals (they looked more like the leather pants cowboys would wear). No diapers! I was quite far from motherhood, so I didn’t think of it much. Now I’m full of questions and I wish I could go back and talk to their mothers. I’m sure those babies develope a healthy elimination habits and have no rashes. But I wonder what would be their winter equivalent 🙂
My mom (Russian) would rock me to sleep and then transfer me to the crib.
Many Central Asian countries have short tiny cradles for babies. Maybe the size is to just got them right and give security.
Someone is the US told me their Abby slept in a drawer for a few months 🙂
Thanks for the post!

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Welcome! I'm the author of The Science of Mom: A Research-Based Guide to Your Baby's First Year, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2015. I write about science, health, parenting, and nutrition here and for other print and online outlets.
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